This disclosure relates to image processing and in particular to improving the efficiency or facilities offered in the creative process of transferring film originated material into a TV or Video medium.
Conventionally, the process of film to video transfer is accomplished on a xe2x80x98Telecinexe2x80x99 machine, and a number of additional control and editing systems. Examples of such telecine machines are the Rank Cintel URSA machine, or the BTS FDL 90 machine. Such machine transfer the film to video in xe2x80x98real timexe2x80x99. This means that a film that has a one hour viewing duration takes one hour to transfer to video. Telecine machines are inevitably very expensive and this is unlikely to be changed by forthcoming technology. This is because of the large amount of precision mechanics necessary to transport film with great stability and without putting undue stress on, or damaging, the film.
Making editorial decisions on the reproduction cannot be accomplished in real time, and thus there exist a number of programmer, machines, which allow decisions to be made in non real time, stored, and replayed in real time. Examples of such programming systems are the POGLE (Trade Mark), available from Pandora International, or the DA VINCI (Trade Mark), from Colorgraphics in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The technique of xe2x80x98scene by scene programmingxe2x80x99 is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,096,523. In a typical operation, colour grading is carried out. Film resolution material has a much wider range of colours than are used in video material. One task of the programmer is to adjust the colours so that they will be suitable for the video environment. Thus, in one scene there may be a red item whose colour needs to be adjusted for the video material, and the appropriate grading operation will be carried out for that scene.
Such telecine systems usually have a xe2x80x98referencexe2x80x99 store. This allows a comparison between one image and another, quite often on a xe2x80x98split screenxe2x80x99 basis. Such facilities are quite often used to compare the colour consistency of a given object between several scenes.
Extensions to the reference store can be accomplished by techniques disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,857,994. This discloses a method for adding an additional xe2x80x98still storexe2x80x99 to the telecine grading system, and controlling the available images on this still store from the programming system. Examples of such systems are the xe2x80x98Matchboxxe2x80x99 (Trade Mark) system from Rank Cintel Ltd., or the still store from ACCOM, in Menlo Park, Calif. USA.
In a separate series of developments, there now exist a number of systems for the xe2x80x98non-linearxe2x80x99 editing of video material. Typically, video material (normally shot as video, although the systems do not preclude the use of film originated material converted to video on a telecine type system) is digitised, i.e. captured into a digital computer type disc file, compressed, i.e. meaning data compressed by such techniques as the ISO standard JPEG system, and displayed on a low cost video workstation for the purpose of making xe2x80x98cutxe2x80x99 decisions These decisions are stored in a xe2x80x98cut listxe2x80x99 which is eventually applied to the original high quality (non-compressed) material in a process often referred to as xe2x80x98conformingxe2x80x99. Such non-linear editing systems are available from Lightworks Editing Systems Ltd. of London, or AVID Inc., of Massachusetts USA.
As can be seen from the above, the artistic process entails the use of a number of components, which have evolved over a period of time. Therefore the interfacing of such boxes are non-ideal, and some functions are repeated between systems, whilst other desirable features are missing.
Currently available systems have a xe2x80x98close couplingxe2x80x99 of video around the telecine machine. The programmer to telecine link is a xe2x80x98controlxe2x80x99 link, meaning that control data only passes down this link. No true video information is available at the programmer. Reference is made to FIG. 1, which shows a telecine machine with a video processing unit, a programmer and a monitor, and output to a video tape machine.
Even for systems where a xe2x80x98still storexe2x80x99 system is employed, there has to be a xe2x80x98close couplingxe2x80x99 between the telecine and the still store. Reference is made to FIG. 2 which shows a telecine machine with a video processing unit, a programmer and a monitor, output to a video tape machine, and a still store which exchange video data with the telecine and receives control data from the programmer.